Big Tech's fast-expanding plans for data centers are running into stiff community opposition

SPRING CITY, Pa. (AP) — Tech companies and developers looking to plunge billions of dollars into ever-bigger data centers to power artificial intelligence and cloud computing are increasingly losing fights in communities where people don’t want to live next to them, or even near them.

Communities across the United States are reading about — and learning from — each other's battles against data center proposals that are fast multiplying in number and size to meet steep demand as developers branch out in search of faster connections to power sources.

In many cases, municipal boards are trying to figure out whether energy- and water-hungry data centers fit into their zoning framework. Some have entertained waivers or tried to write new ordinances. Some don’t have zoning.

But as more people hear about a data center coming to their community, once-sleepy municipal board meetings in farming towns and growing suburbs now feature crowded rooms of angry residents pressuring local officials to reject the requests.

“Would you want this built in your backyard?” Larry Shank asked supervisors last month in Pennsylvania's East Vincent Township. “Because that’s where it’s literally going, is in my backyard.”

A growing number of proposals are going down in defeat, sounding alarms across the data center constellation of Big Tech firms, real estate developers, electric utilities, labor unions and more.

Andy Cvengros, who helps lead the data center practice at commercial real estate giant JLL, counted seven or eight deals he’d worked on in recent months that saw opponents going door-to-door, handing out shirts or putting signs in people’s yards.

“It’s becoming a huge problem,” Cvengros said.

Data Center Watch, a project of 10a Labs, an AI security consultancy, said it is seeing a sharp escalation in community, political and regulatory disruptions to data center development.

Between April and June alone, its latest reporting period, it counted 20 proposals valued at $98 billion in 11 states that were blocked or delayed amid local opposition and state-level pushback. That amounts to two-thirds of the projects it was tracking.

Some environmental and consumer advocacy groups say they’re fielding calls every day, and are working to educate communities on how to protect themselves.

“I’ve been doing this work for 16 years, worked on hundreds of campaigns I’d guess, and this by far is the biggest kind of local pushback I’ve ever seen here in Indiana,” said Bryce Gustafson of the Indianapolis-based Citizens Action Coalition.

In Indiana alone, Gustafson counted more than a dozen projects that lost rezoning petitions.

For some people angry over steep increases in electric bills, their patience is thin for data centers that could bring still-higher increases.

Losing open space, farmland, forest or rural character is a big concern. So is the damage to quality of life, property values or health by on-site diesel generators kicking on or the constant hum of servers. Others worry that wells and aquifers could run dry.

Lawsuits are flying — both ways — over whether local governments violated their own rules.

Big Tech firms Microsoft, Google, Amazon and Facebook — which are collectively spending hundreds of billions of dollars on data centers across the globe — didn’t answer Associated Press questions about the effect of community pushback.

Microsoft, however, has acknowledged the difficulties. In an October securities filing, it listed its operational risks as including “community opposition, local moratoriums, and hyper-local dissent that may impede or delay infrastructure development.”

Even with high-level support from state and federal governments, the pushback is having an impact.

Maxx Kossof, vice president of investment at Chicago-based developer The Missner Group, said developers worried about losing a zoning fight are considering selling properties once they secure a power source — a highly sought-after commodity that makes a proposal far more viable and valuable.

“You might as well take chips off the table,” Kossof said. “The thing is you could have power to a site and it’s futile because you might not get the zoning. You might not get the community support.”

Some in the industry are frustrated, saying opponents are spreading falsehoods about data centers — such as polluting water and air — and are difficult to overcome.

Still, data center allies say they are urging developers to engage with the public earlier in the process, emphasize economic benefits, sow good will by supporting community initiatives and talk up efforts to conserve water and power and protect ratepayers.

“It's definitely a discussion that the industry is having internally about, ‘Hey, how do we do a better job of community engagement?’” said Dan Diorio of the Data Center Coalition, a trade association that includes Big Tech firms and developers.

Winning over local officials, however, hasn't translated to winning over residents.

Developers pulled a project off an October agenda in the Charlotte suburb of Matthews, North Carolina, after Mayor John Higdon said he informed them it faced unanimous defeat.

The project would have funded half the city’s budget and developers promised environmentally friendly features. But town meetings overflowed, and emails, texts and phone calls were overwhelmingly opposed, “999 to one against,” Higdon said.

Had council approved it, “every person that voted for it would no longer be in office,” the mayor said. “That's for sure.”

In Hermantown, a suburb of Duluth, Minnesota, a proposed data center campus several times larger than the Mall of America is on hold amid challenges over whether the city’s environmental review was adequate.

Residents found each other through social media and, from there, learned to organize, protest, door-knock and get their message out.

They say they felt betrayed and lied to when they discovered that state, county, city and utility officials knew about the proposal for an entire year before the city — responding to a public records request filed by the Minnesota Center for Environmental Advocacy — released internal emails that confirmed it.

“It’s the secrecy. The secrecy just drives people crazy,” said Jonathan Thornton, a realtor who lives across a road from the site.

Documents revealing the extent of the project emerged days before a city rezoning vote in October. Mortenson, which is developing it for a Fortune 50 company that it hasn't named, says it is considering changes based on public feedback and that “more engagement with the community is appropriate."

Rebecca Gramdorf found out about it from a Duluth newspaper article, and immediately worried that it would spell the end of her six-acre vegetable farm.

She found other opponents online, ordered 100 yard signs and prepared for a struggle.

“I don’t think this fight is over at all,” Gramdorf said.

Follow Marc Levy on X at https://x.com/timelywriter.

People listen during an East Vincent Township supervisors meeting where an agenda item involved a data center proposal at the former Pennhurst state hospital grounds, Dec. 17, 2025, in Spring City, Pa. (AP Photo/Marc Levy)

Mike Petak of Spring City gestures while speaking to East Vincent Township supervisors in opposition to a data center proposal at the former Pennhurst state hospital grounds, Dec. 17, 2025, in Spring City, Pa. (AP Photo/Marc Levy)

People opposed to a data center proposal at the former Pennhurst state hospital grounds attend an East Vincent Township supervisors meeting, Dec. 17, 2025, in Spring City, Pa. (AP Photo/Marc Levy)

People opposed to a data center proposal at the former Pennhurst state hospital grounds talk during a break in an East Vincent Township supervisors meeting, Dec. 17, 2025, in Spring City, Pa. (AP Photo/Marc Levy)

People sign in and head into an East Vincent Township supervisors meeting where an agenda item involved a data center proposal at the former Pennhurst state hospital grounds, Dec. 17, 2025, in Spring City, Pa. (AP Photo/Marc Levy)

Mike Petak of Spring City gestures while speaking to East Vincent Township supervisors in opposition to a data center proposal at the former Pennhurst state hospital grounds, Dec. 17, 2025, in Spring City, Pa. (AP Photo/Marc Levy)

PHOENIX (AP) — Madison Booker has a midrange jumper that's almost unblockable, beats defenders off the dribble, plays in the post when she wants, shoots the 3 if she needs to.

The Texas junior has great court vision, is an adept passer and is a menace defensively, bullying smaller guards on the ball, jumping into passing lanes off it.

Had it been an earlier era in women's college basketball, Booker would have been a back-to-the-basket player.

But this is a new age, one where 6-footers are everywhere at this year's Final Four and Booker is a guard — at 6-foot-1.

“You look at Madison Booker and, I mean, she’s like a mini-KD (Kevin Durant),” Kentucky coach Kenny Brooks said after Booker had 17 points, eight rebounds and five assists against his team in the Sweet 16.

The average height for an American woman is 5-3, according to the CDC.

Women's college basketball has become the oversized outlier above the median, towering players spread across the Division I landscape, many of whom do more than just park under the basket.

This year's repeat Final Four has a large collection of large players, UConn, South Carolina, UCLA and Texas arriving with a combined 36 players 6-0 or taller — 55.6% of all the players in Phoenix.

UCLA's Lauren Betts is the tallest among the regular contributors at 6-7, anchoring a team with eight players at least 6-0.

The two-time AP All-American is a matchup nightmare, using her height and skill to score in a variety of ways — mainly shooting over smaller defenders. Betts is just as dominant on the defensive end, swatting shots, altering many more, deterring opponents from even thinking about going into the lane.

Betts averaged 18.5 points and 7.6 rebounds while shooting 60.1% from the field and leading the Bruins (35-1) with 71 blocked shots.

“It's just really hard to defend her an entire game,” Duke coach Kara Lawson said after Betts scored 15 of her 23 points in UCLA's 70-58 comeback win over the Blue Devils in the Elite Eight.

Betts and the Bruins will face pair of Texas bigs in Friday's second Final Four game.

Kyla Oldacre is 6-6, Breya Cunningham 6-4 and the pair helped shut down Betts when the teams met in November in Las Vegas.

They've been doing it all season on a team that features nine players 6-0 or taller.

Behind the towering presence of Oldacre and Cunningham, Texas (35-3) was one of the nation's best defensive teams, holding teams to 55.9 points per game and 38% shooting from the field.

The two biggest Longhorns are a handful on offense as well, both shooting at least 59% from the floor while combining to score 18.3 points and grab 11.8 rebounds per game.

“You can win a lot of games with just good guard play, no question, but you've got to have size to go with it,” Texas coach Vic Schaefer said.

The first Final Four game doesn't get any smaller.

Reigning national champion UConn (38-0) has two All-Americans in Azzi Fudd and Sarah Strong — also The Associated Press player of the year — as they've gone nearly untested through an undefeated season.

Fudd is 5-11, but Strong is a 6-2 forward who fits the mold of today's bigs on a team with 10 players 6-0 or taller.

Strong is a superb post player, yet can also beat defenders off the dribble and shoots 41% from 3. Like Booker, she also has great court vision and is a great passer.

Strong averaged 18.8 points on 60% shooting, 7.7 rebounds and 3.8 assists on a front line that includes 6-4 Serah Williams with 6-5 Jana El-Alfy coming off the bench.

“She is such a hard guard,” North Carolina coach Courtney Banghart said after Strong had 21 points and 10 rebounds and five steals against her team in the Sweet 16. “She's so unselfish. If she wants to score 40 the next game, she can.”

South Carolina (35-3) got manhandled by UConn in last year's title game, but coach Dawn Staley retooled her roster to add versatility.

Second-team All-American Joyce Edwards played for Staley last season, but took a big jump this season, boosting her scoring average seven points to 19.7 per game. The 6-3 sophomore can play inside or out, has a strong midrange game and can guard multiple positions.

Madina Okot is 6-6, but is far more than a back-to-the-basket big.

The Kenyan center is an elite finisher at the rim, was the SEC's leading rebounder at 10.8 per game and shot 48% from 3 (58% overall). Her size and timing combined to make her a super interior defender, leading the team with 55 blocks while altering many more.

The pair anchor a team that has nine players 6-0 or taller and held its first four NCAA Tournament opponents to 32% shooting.

“They’re a much better team than they were last year, really hard to prepare for," UConn coach Geno Auriemma said. “They’ve shot the ball exceptionally well this year. They’ve added the size that is hard to match up with.”

Size can be found all across women's basketball these days, particularly at this year's Final Four.

AP March Madness bracket: https://apnews.com/hub/ncaa-womens-bracket and coverage: https://apnews.com/hub/march-madness

Texas center Kyla Oldacre passes the ball during practice prior to the national semifinals Women's Final Four of the NCAA college basketball tournament, Thursday, April 2, 2026, in Phoenix. (AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin)

UCLA center Lauren Betts passes the ball during practice prior to the national semifinals at the Women's Final Four of the NCAA college basketball tournament, Thursday, April 2, 2026, in Phoenix. (AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin)

Texas forward Madison Booker dribbles the ball during practice prior to the national semifinals Women's Final Four of the NCAA college basketball tournament, Thursday, April 2, 2026, in Phoenix. (AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin)